iForgot
by acthrower
Summary: Sam and Freddie's relationship breaches the 'just friends' gap. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a one night stand morphs into a much bigger issue. I think I'm just going to post the story I wrote for this, even though it's been done.
1. August 13

"You swore we'd never do this again." Freddie whispered into my lips as we pulled apart for air. He was panting and the heaving of his chest made my heart race and there was an anxious knot in the pit of my stomach.

"Shut up, Fredward," I leaned into him leaving nothing between our bodies, but two layers of clothing. Two years ago we'd shared our first kiss on the fire escape outside his window and at that time we'd sworn to one another that we'd never do anything like that again and that we'd never tell anyone what happened. I could understand his apprehension, because I had a reputation for being unnecessarily violent, but I was a different person now. I was someone who would actually consider giving all of myself to the one person that I ever truly thought I hated.

I felt his hand on my waist leading me toward his perfectly made bed. In the two years since I'd been here nothing had changed. His walls were still paper white and his carpet was the color of oatmeal, even his bed sheets were the same boring baby blue that they had probably been for the last seventeen years. I smiled as my head hit the pillow; it smelled like Freddie. He slid his hand under my shirt and idly traced patterns on my skin while he concentrated on kissing me. I pushed his shirt up and over his head so that I was staring up at his bare chest. Freddie had grown up a lot in the last few years, but he was still the pale slightly squishy boy I remembered. He pushed away from me and looked concernedly at me for a second.

"Are you—"

I cut him off by pressing my lips hard against his and he got the message, my shirt was over my head and in the floor before I had taken another breath. I could feel the weight of his body pressing into me, it was a safe feeling, something a hadn't felt in a long time. I relaxed into his arms and he twirled his fingers through my hair to pull me closer to him. I think he would have been perfectly happy to hold me in his arms like that for the rest of the night, and in retrospect, that probably would have been a better choice. Instead, I gently lifted his hips and began undoing his belt buckle.

When we were both naked, he began kissing a trail down my neck toward my breasts while I ran my hands up and down his back. I'd never touched a boy where clothes usually covered; it was a lot softer and smoother than arm skin. I gasped as I felt my nipples harden under Freddie's hot breath, he smiled and looked up into my eyes. There was a tingling sensation between my legs that was entirely different than the one I felt when I was alone in my room at night. This was a more urgent desire pressing my hips subconsciously toward his.

As I wondered what exactly was supposed to happen next, Freddie softly pushed my knees apart and positioned himself above me. He looked as unsure as I felt, but we took simultaneous deep breaths and he thrust himself into me. A painful yelp escaped my throat and I felt like my lower body was on fire; Freddie pulled back a little and looked worriedly at me.

"It's okay," I murmured as the pain subsided. He leaned down to kiss my forehead and then continued thrusting clumsily, without any real rhythm. It was an absolutely foreign feeling to have another person so close to me. Feeling him inside me made my stomach queasy, but it was a good queasy. It was like right after you get off a really great roller coaster.

Before I was ready for it to end Freddie froze and let out an almost surprised grunt. He let his weight drop to one side and rolled over onto his back so that he was staring at the ceiling. It wasn't great sex; awkward and crude, but now that it was over, I felt a little empty. I curled into his side and heaved a watery sigh. Freddie stroked my hair quietly while tears flowed down my cheeks and melted into his pillowcase. I wasn't sad really, I just felt like I had let something important slip away with no hope to retrieve it. Before long I heard Freddie's breathing even out and when I looked up he was sound asleep. It made me laugh, because somewhere I'd heard that guys always fall asleep after sex.

I slipped out of the bed and tracked down all of my clothes, but as I was opening the door to leave I saw a green sharpie sitting on his desk. I couldn't contain myself, I drew a giant smiley face on his chest with nipples for eyes. I almost laughed out loud, but instead I leaned down and kissed the smiley mouth and crept out of the Benson home into the hallway.

Since Carly's house was just across the hall I figured there was no harm in dropping by unannounced. I pushed open the door without knocking and Spencer looked up at me from the couch. He was tinkering with some mechanical contraption that looked like it might have been a microwave at some point. He waved distractedly and said that Carly was up on the third floor finishing up some homework. I grabbed a couple slices of ham from the fridge and punched the button for the elevator.

Freddie, Carly and I had converted the third floor into a studio a few years ago when we decided to film our web show up there. It was a huge success and we had followers all over the globe. We even got to go to Japan to receive an award for the show. After over a hundred webcasts, though we agreed that it would be better to end the show on a high note rather than letting our ever aging fan base dwindle to zero and being shamed off the web. Our last show was an all night blow out for New Years Eve eight months ago, it was the perfect way for us to end our legacy.

Unfortunately, when the show ended, Carly and I began to drift apart. When we were kids our differences were what attracted us to one another, but as we got older out interests diverted vastly from one another and the one thing that held us together was the promise that our web show was common ground. By that Friday night Carly was more interested in hanging out with a bunch of bimbos at the latest party I wasn't invited to.

It was strange then, that Carly would be at home doing homework tonight, because Sunday was her stay home night, not Friday. As lackadaisical as Spencer was about parenting, he always insisted that whatever Carly might do on any other night, Sunday she had to stay home and do schoolwork. Yet when I walking in she was sitting on a bean bag chair in the middle of the floor reading a physics textbook.

"Hey Sam, what are you doing here so late?" she motioned for me to sit on the bean bag next to her.

"It's only 8:30, Carls," I pointed out as I plopped down.

"Well it feels later when you've been reading about vectors for the last three hours." She tossed the book aside and turned her full attention on me.

"Yeah, what are you doing home on a Friday night?"

"Well it's Friday the thirteenth so I traded my study nights this week. Spencer thought I would be safer at home tonight." She rolled her eyes at her brother's superstitious nonsense. "I thought you and Freddie were going to the Groovy Smoothie tonight."

"We did, but there is only so much Frederly a girl can take in one night." My heart skipped a beat when she squinted her eyes at me. Was there someway she could know what happened? Maybe she saw us coming up the stairs together, or something. Maybe she could tell just by the look on my face. Even though our relationship was waning, she'd known me for almost a decade and she could pick up on things about me that even I would miss.

"What's wrong with you tonight?"

"Nothing, I'm just thinking about something Freddie said to me tonight." I figured that a white lie was a fine segue into what I really wanted to talk about. This way, I hoped she would just think Freddie and I were having strange conversations over smoothies. "Carly do you remember your first time?"

"My first time what, Sam, skydiving?" she played dumb. I knew she knew what I meant because she'd confided once that she wasn't a virgin anymore, but she had never given any clue as to who or under what circumstances.

"First time with a boy," I clarified, determined to get an answer. My face was starting to burn, I could feel heat rising from my collar up to my forehead, right where Freddie had kissed me not even an hour ago.

"I remember," she said slowly, "why do you ask? You and Freddie weren't talking about me, were you?"

"No I'm just curious, do you mind me asking?" she shook her head no. "Well, was it good? Did it make you feel all empty inside afterward, or was it like take it or leave it?"

She looked uncomfortable and I thought about telling her that she didn't have to answer, but I really wanted to hear what she'd say. "It was with Toby last year at that homecoming party that you refused to go to." Her voice was quite and a little remorseful, I think.

I refused to go to that party because I knew it was going to be a bunch of teenagers that I didn't really like getting drunk and doing stupid things that could get them killed, or arrested, and contrary to my reputation, I didn't really want to go back to jail anytime soon.

"Everyone was in the hotel room trying to get drunker than the next guy, and I wasn't in the mood to clean up puke, so Toby took me to this secluded area on the beach. We laid out a blanket and he lit some candles, it was a chilly, but he said we'd keep each other warm. We didn't plan to have sex, but we were just laying there watching the stars and it felt right. It was like a scene from a movie, and I thought I loved him." Carly had dated Toby for about a year when we were sophomores, but they had broken up shortly after that homecoming and she had never been forthcoming about the break-up. The only thing that she would say was that he wasn't who she thought he was.

"So, I guess it was nice and at the time I thought it was going to be great, but when It was over, I felt used and alone. He sort of lost all interest in me after that. There are other ways I would have chosen to lose my virginity, but he was at least romantic about using me. So yeah, I'd say empty is a pretty good way to describe how I felt."

I thought about that for a minute, when Carly said she felt empty, she meant that she felt used up and tossed aside. That's not how I felt at all, though. It was like something was missing, when I went into Freddie's bedroom I was whole, but I'd left a part of me with him and I wasn't used to being without it yet. It was unsettling, but it felt nice to share something like that with someone I at least trusted, even if I didn't really like him that much.


	2. September 24

"Carly?" my voice was shaking and so were my knees.

Carly was alone in her room tossing clothes everywhere. She was looking for the perfect outfit to wear to the party she was going to later that night. She was absolutely convinced that everything she owned was too ugly to wear to the quarterback's party of the year.

Her inability to choose an outfit from her infinite supply of clothing had always baffled me. Since I met her, Carly's closet had been bursting with ensemble choices. I was jealous when we were younger, because my clothes weren't as trendy as hers, but I had a strict modesty code that I adhered to. Carly tried often to give me things that she'd grown out of, but I felt they were too revealing for me. Eventually, however, Carly convinced me to try on a few things and in the past two years I had been a grateful recipient of all her hand-me-downs.

I positioned myself in front of her full length mirror and studied my outfit, a denim mini skirt and a pale yellow scoop-neck tee. Carly told me earlier that it was out of season for late September, but I thought it was okay, and what did I care what was in season anyway?

Carly was still pulling shirts on and off without paying any attention to what I was doing. If I had walked out she wouldn't have noticed at all.

"So, I stopped by the mini-mart on my way over here..." I said loudly, but she gave no indication that she'd heard me. "...and I bought a pregnancy test."

Now she whipped around and studied my face, waiting for the punchline. When it didn't come her expression contorted to something between pity and shock.

"Are you—" she couldn't finish the question, but her stunted sentence was all too familiar as I thought about how this could have happened to me. A wave of terror stopped my reminiscent grin in its tracks.

"I don't know, yet," I admitted, "I couldn't do it alone." I held out the little drugstore bag with the letters e-p-t staring at me through the cheap plastic.

"Well Sam, there's a bathroom right down the hall and when you're done with that step, we can talk about the sperm donor." she shuffled me into the bathroom and pulled the door closed before I could finish saying that I didn't have to pee, but she knew what I was thinking. "There are some Dixie cups under the counter, fill up."

I could hear her moving on the other side of the door, apparently she wasn't going to move until I was done.

"What makes you think you're pregnant?" Carly's voice was muffled through the door, but I could tell she was hoping that I was overreacting. "Are you late or something?"

"Well I guess you could say that, I missed last month entirely and now I'm late this month too." I shrugged even though she couldn't see me. "I haven't been nauseous or anything though."

Carly didn't say anything and I could imagine her rolling her eyes at me. I drank four cups of tap water while I waited for her to say something, but there was nothing, but silence. I called her name a few times and when she didn't answer, I cracked open the door. The hallway was empty, but I followed the faint sound of her voice the her bedroom; she was on the phone.

"...thirty on Monday? Okay, that's great, okay buh-bye." she hung up and turned to face me. "Why aren't you peeing on a stick?"

"You left me, I told you I couldn't do it alone. What are you doing, anyway?"

"I was making an appointment for you to go to the clinic on Monday."

"We're not even sure I'll need one yet," I protested, but Carly just smiled and patted me on the top of my head. She gently steered me back into the bathroom without another word. I could guess how she thought the test was going to turn out, but I was still hanging onto my last shred of hope that maybe I was just stressed out from all the homework I didn't do anyway.

I knew where babies came from, and I knew that sex without protection led to babies, but for some reason when I was in Freddie's bedroom a month and half ago, those thing never once crossed my mind. I guess when they were preaching safe sex in school I was giving out free wedgies in the bathroom.

Finally I was able to produce enough urine to take the test, but the three minute wait was what I thought was going to kill me. I put the little cap on the test and laid it face down on the tile, then I checked my cell phone; it was 2:54. This was not how I'd imagined spending my Friday night. It was our senior year and I was supposed to spend every weekend with as much fun as humanly possible before the real world took our souls on graduation day. I even promised Carly that I would go to Prom this year, just to say 'I was so there'.

The digital clock on my phone blipped to 2:57. I took a deep breath and held it as I reached down for my fate. There was a bubblegum pink plus sign in the display window, horribly clear, with no room for denial. My heart sank to my knees and all the air I was holding whooshed out of me, the room started spinning violently and I barely made it to the toilet before my cafeteria lunch launched itself into the bowl.

* * * * *

I shut the door to our apartment hard behind me. When I had regained my composure, I left the bathroom and Carly was back in her room picking clothes for the party she was obviously still attending. I set the test quietly on her dresser and left without saying good-bye. I was mad at her for leaving me when I was so scared and I was mad at myself for being scared, but mostly I was going to kill Freddie for knocking me up. I was still standing on the threshold breathing heavily when my mother popped her head out of the living room.

"Sam, what are you doing here so early, and why are you dressed like a streetwalker?" She disapproved of most of my clothes, but that was part of why I liked them. She was always telling me that when I dressed like that kind of a girl people were only around the corner waiting to take advantage of me. She didn't wait for me to answer she just disappeared back into her cave.

The outfit hadn't seemed inappropriate when I put it on the morning, but the knowledge that there was a person growing beneath my too low top cast things in an entirely different light. Suddenly I was convinced that if I'd kept myself covered, Fredward would have kept his paws in his own pants. I was ashamed of myself for being so easily persuaded and I was madder than ever at Carly for convincing me to loosen up in the first place.

There was a plastic green tun filled with recyclables next to the front door, so I dumped it out and ran across the house to my bedroom. Once safely tucked behind a closed door I threw open my closet doors and tossed everything on the ground and then I moved on the the dresser emptying drawer after drawer until there was nothing left that could be misconstrued as promiscuous. On top of my pile was a pair of red and white striped boxers that I hadn't worn since Junior High. I tossed my mini skirt into the bucket and replaced it with the boxers, next I threw the shirt I was wearing into the bucket, too.

Before I could really get started, I heard the door creak open and I jumped behind the bin to cover myself. When the door swung open, Carly was standing there looking concerned. I huffed at her and started throwing everything in reach into my garbage bin.

"I brought you the address for the clinic. Sam, what are you doing?" she took a step closer, her face was lined with angst. I couldn't help wonder whether she was afraid for me or afraid of me; either way it felt good to scare her.

"I'm getting rid of all the clothes that make me look like a whore. I never should have given in to your peer pressure," I said, merely to elicit a reaction. Carly didn't say anything, but her features darkened and I felt a sense of subversive pleasure. "If you had just let me go on being modest, I never would have gotten into this situation."

"I really don't think what you were wearing affected much, it was more what he wasn't wearing," I stared blankly at her, "A condom."

"Carly, you don't get it do you? It matters to me, it has always mattered to me, but you had to convince me that I wasn't pretty enough in my own clothes. I had to wear what you decided was good for me, and now I'm pregnant and people are going to see me and think that I'm the kind of girl who can't keep her clothes on. I don't want to encourage that image by barely wearing anything at all." I was almost screaming at her, but it felt good to blame someone else.

"People make mistakes regardless of whether or not they wear shorts that are three inches above the knee. I don't think people are going to judge you any less if you hide behind four layers of clothing."

"Easy for you to say, you are that kind of girl and you broadcast it every weekend at a different guy's house."

I regretted it the moment I said it, and I knew it wasn't true, but there was no taking it back. Carly's face froze halfway through a word and the color drained out of her face. She fixed me with an icy stare and there was no pity left in her eyes. I knew what came next was going to hurt.

"I might wear short skirts, but I can put pants on anytime. How are you going to cover your baby, smother it in your usual fashion, or just abandon it at a junkyard?"

I deserved, but that didn't lessen the blow. I watched through tear clouded eyes as Carly spun on her heel and left. As soon as the door latched behind her I erupted into sobs. I rocked back and forth on my floor for a long time hoping that at any moment I would wake up sweating to realize that my only worry was that I was late for homeroom again.


	3. May 24

The weekend disappeared in record time and ten years before I was ready, I sat quietly in the backseat of a bus, waiting to take a pregnancy test. The little stick said baby on board, but Carly seemed to think that I needed to go to this clinic too. Before she'd stormed out Friday, she left a pink sticky note with the address and the appointment time on my dresser, so it was the least I could do to show up.

I wanted to talk to Carly about how scared I was, but I didn't have the nerve to call her and apologize. All day at school she had given me a hostile stare if I even tried to make eye contact. Guessed she just wasn't ready to forgive and forget yet. I hoped that she would reconsider that decision before we were thirty. Freddie could tell we were fighting so he stayed as far away from us as possible, but somehow he still managed to annoy me enough to earn himself a wedgie, that might have just been some displaced anger. Despite the fact that at almost eighteen years old Freddie could probably break my hundred pound frame in half, he let me push him to his limits without too much whining.

The bus shuddered to a stop and I peeked out the window. I was the only person on the bus so I was definitely meant to get off here, but the only thing I could see was a small concrete building with a broken sign that read 'ree linic'. It was a strong contrast to the giant stark white building that lived in my imagination, waiting to capture the futures of misguided teenage girls everywhere.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" I asked the bus driver.

"Unless you're looking for the abortion clinic on fourth and Grand," he narrowed his eyes at me in the rear view. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he's already decided that I was nothing more than a problem child.

"If I meant that one I would have let you know, mister." I stomped my way to the front of the bus and on my way out the door I accidentally, on purpose, shoved his bag of pretzels onto the floor.

Inside the building a grumpy old lady made me fill out a couple pounds of paperwork and then told me to sit in the waiting room. Apparently my appointment was merely a broad suggestion of when to show up and wait. The waiting room had about twenty uncomfortable looking chairs and pink wallpaper that was peeling off in the corners. I plopped down in the chair furthest from the other people in the room and scanned for something to read.

The cheap wooden coffee tables were littered with pamphlets, most of which were cover by pictures of people who looked way too happy to have whatever they were infected with. A black one, void of smiling cretins caught my attention, though. There was nothing but the words "How did you get here?" written across the front and the 'here' was underlined with what I can only imagine was a coke line. At first, it made me smile, but the more I looked at it the more I wondered, how did I get here?

* * * * *

Final exams had been over for less than fifteen minutes, but Carly, Freddie and I were not about to let our first taste of summer vacation slip away from us. We had bolted out of class and made it to the public pool in no time flat. It was still the end of May so the water was a little chilly still, but we weren't concerned by that at all. We were busy horsing around in the water, hardly bothered by the fact that the remnants of class notes were turning to mush, and our backpacks were flooded with pool water.

"Sam, you're going to kill Freddie," Carly was giggling at me holding Freddie's underwater. She had opted out of the rough housing and watched us safely from a ledge.

"He's—" I was going to tell her that Freddie was fine, but he caught my leg in his grasp and yanked me under. Freddie and I battled beneath the surface until we couldn't hold our breath a moment longer. We both resurfaced spluttering and laughing.

"Carly you should have seen it, Freddie tried to—Carly?" I looked around in the water, but she was nowhere to been seen.

"She's over there," Freddie pointed glumly over at the juice bar. Carly was talking to a tall muscular guy. She was obviously flirting, even Freddie the oblivious could tell. "He's so not her type."

"Yeah right, because he's too tan and good looking. Not at all like the football players she usually dates." I rolled my eyes at him. Even after many years and many significant others on both their sides, Freddie was still convinced that Carly was the one for him. "Freddie if you keep saving yourself for Carly, you're never going to get laid."

"Oh you're so clever. You don't have any room to talk anyway, you never even keep a boyfriend long enough to get to second base. Anyway I'm not saving myself for Carly, I decided that I'm going do it this summer." He crossed his arms triumphantly at me. I laughed, hard.

"Do what, Fredelia?" I pushed him.

"Don't be cute, Sam you know what I mean. I bet you couldn't find someone to sleep with you if you paid them."

"You bet? Fine I'll bet, whoever loses their virginity by the end of the summer wins." I liked betting too much to let this chance slide by, there was no way Freddie was going to convince a girl that they needed some of that white pasty loving.

"Fine, but you have to have some sort of proof, so that you can't just make it up."

"Proof, what you want me to steal his underpants? This isn't an eighties movie we're living in." That was Freddie for you, he wasn't going to just take my word for it, there had better be irrefutable proof that. It was almost cute that after all this time he still didn't get me.

"No, unless you think that'll work. You better at least have a name and a picture of his room or something."

"Okay, if that'll make you shut up." I glanced over to where Carly was, but she had disappeared again, probably somewhere to make out with that guy. It was strange that Freddie would put aside his dream of living happily ever after with Carly to go out and have casual sex. "Freddie why are you doing this? Are you going to wait for Carly to realize you're her prince and run off into the sunset with you?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Sam, Carly will never love me. That was just a dream, I've only been holding onto it for the last few years because it saved me from having to put myself out there and seek out companionship."

"Have you been reading you psychology textbook again?"

"Yes, but it's true, Plus, this is our last summer of freedom, after this we have our senior year and then we all go off to college, well Carly and I do," I sneered. "The real world is catching up to us fast, and I want to do something special this summer, something that will make this summer memorable."

"Cue the romantic music and hand out the Kleenex, because this is the start of a chick flick." Freddie was always a little melodramatic, but he really seemed to believe what he was saying this time. "So what are you going to give me when I win?"

"You're going to be taking me to the carnival, when I win," He answered smugly.

Every summer there was a carnival to celebrate the end of summer and the return of fall. It was just an excuse for teenagers to stay out all night and eat fried foods until were ill, but it was the best thing that the city ever did for us. By the time we were done puking up all the fried fat cakes we were ready for something less exciting to keep occupied, the perfect way to end the summer. Unfortunately, all that fun cost money, so if I didn't win this bet I was going to be staying home while Freddie was out having all the fun, no way I was going to let that happen.

"You're on."

* * * * *

"Samantha Puckett," the sound of my name echoing through the clinic made me jump and suddenly I was back in the now almost empty waiting room.

The nurse shuffled me into a small exam room and I plopped down on a chair ready to wait another hour for a doctor. It turns out, though, that once you're in that little room things move along pretty quickly. Someone sticks you with a needle and they send a vial full of you off to a lab to test, then the nurse tells you that someone will call you in a day or two, no later than Friday. It's a good thing this isn't a life changing answer I'm looking for here, because there's no feeling of closure when I leave the clinic, just a huge knot in my stomach.


	4. October 29

The clinic waited until Friday to call me back. I was walking home from school that afternoon and I had almost convinced myself that the whole thing had been a bad dream when my cell phone started buzzing in my pocket. I checked the caller ID and when I realized who was on the other end I slipped into an alleyway to answer.

The tired voice that floated through the receiver apologized for misplacing my test results and unceremoniously informed me that the pregnancy test had been positive. She droned on about how the doctor suspected that I was about eight weeks pregnant and her voice washed over me in long sleepy waves delivering a cascade of unpleasant news. I was going to have to come in for regular exams, of course abortion was still an option, but there was always adoption, if I wasn't planning to keep the baby...

"When am I supposed to come in?" I asked her, mostly just to get her to stop talking. The very thought of carrying a baby around for the next nine months like I was a kangaroo or something was bad enough, but now this lady was asking me to think about what came next, too? I really wasn't ready for this.

"Well, we would have like for you to come in today, but obviously that ship has sailed," she chuckled at her not quite clever cliche, and I grumbled in response. It wasn't as if I lost the test results under a pile of last month's crossword puzzles. "The next available appointment we have isn't for a few weeks, because our obstetrician is on vacation. Would you prefer morning or afternoon?"

"I have to come in after one thirty, because I'm still in high school." I was for the first time beginning to regret my one night stand. What were Freddie and I thinking?

"In that case, we have an opening on Friday, October 29 at two p.m. Will you be brining anyone with you?" she was being nosy, I guess she was trying to find out if I told my parents yet. I was certainly not going to tell my mom anything until she asked about it, or I was in labor.

"I don't think so, I haven't told anyone about it yet." except Carly, but she was definitely not going to come with me.

"Well, pretty soon anyone with eyes is going to know, we'll see you soon, Miss Puckett." she sing-songed and hung up the phone. I hurried out of the alley and headed for home.

I wondered how long it would be before my tiny frame exploded into a blimp sized baby dispenser. The doctor seemed to think that I was eight weeks into this thing, and my clothes weren't tight yet. In all fairness, though, I had no idea what eight weeks represented, or how many weeks I was supposed to stay pregnant, anyway. Nine months, was the only number I ever heard being thrown around. At any rate, I was dreading the day I would have to pull on a double digit sized pair of jeans, but for now, I had my figure and I was sure I still had plenty of time to tell Fredward, before my belly did the talking for me.

* * * * *

"Sam, what are you wearing?" Freddie eyed my outfit distastefully. I was wearing the same forest green t-shirt and dark blue jeans that I'd worn last Friday and the Friday before that, but today it was unreasonably tight around my midsection. It felt like I'd woken up one morning and nothing in my closet fit like it used to. The only way I was fitting into my jeans was to push them down under my blooming belly.

"It's called a t-shirt, Freddork. Maybe you wouldn't be so tightly wound if you wore one once in a while." Freddie glanced down at his outfit choice, a pair of blue jeans and a plum polo.

"Well, it might have been a t-shirt last week, but today it looks more like saran wrap." he laughed uproariously at his own joke, while I thought of ways to maim him.

"That was really cute, Fredlumps, I hope you know that you're going to pay for that." I rested my hands on my hips while I decided on a proper punishment for his discretion. Freddie crossed his arms, waiting, so I reached out and tore the sleeves off his shirt and let them hang around his elbows. It wasn't original, but he got the message.

"Sam! That was my mother's favorite shirt. I can't believe you just did that, we're not fifteen anymore." he was going into full ranting mode, but I was chuckling.

"It might have been her favorite shirt last week, but today it looks more like a safety vest." I laughed until my cheeks hurt, while Freddie tried to control his temper. "On another note, I need you to drive me somewhere after school today."

"Why would I drive you anywhere, after what you just did to my shirt?" He growled.

"Well, because you have to wear another shirt tomorrow and the next day and everyday until I rip the sleeves off every single one. On the other hand, you could just drive me, and I won't touch your shirts." At least he knew when to give up, he sighed and dropped his arms in defeat. "Great, you can pick me up in front of the school at two, okay?"

"Why can't Carly take you?" He smiled meekly at me. He was still holding on the hope that Carly and I would have some miraculous run across a field reunion in the near future. I wasn't convinced.

"Freddie meet me later and don't bring your jokes, they annoy me."

I turned on my heel and stomped off toward my homeroom class. I wasn't really so mad at Freddie, I was just realizing what I'd asked him to do. He was going to know the minute we walked into that place why I was there, no way my bulging stomach and a trip to a clinic were going to escape his attention. When I plopped down in my chair, my knees were shaking and I could feel sweat forming on my brow. I had no other way to make it to the appointment, but I wasn't ready yet for the consequences that came from telling Freddie he was going to be a daddy. Although that was sort of how this whole thing seemed to be happening, entirely before I was ready.

Most of the traditional symptoms of pregnancy had bypassed me entirely. I was only a little nauseous once in a while and my breasts had gotten bigger and a little more sensitive, but other than that, I felt just like normal. The fact that I was shaking, sick to my stomach, and could feel the beginning of a migraine creeping up on me made everything just a little too vivid. Up until this point, I had been quietly pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary, but the idea that Freddie would know about our baby made everything seem real. Our baby...I wasn't ready for this. I pushed my chair back violently and ran for the bathroom and spent the rest of the period fighting waves of nausea.

By the time Freddie rolled up to the front steps of the school I was feeling better, but I would've taken a ride with just about anyone to get away from him at that point. Unfortunately I didn't know anyone else with a car. Even Carly was still borrowing Spencer's. Freddie had been saving up since probably the day he was born to get his first car, and his mother almost died of shock when he pulled up in his new Camry with it's shiny black paint and the ability to take him far away from Mrs. Benson's prying eyes. Spencer had cosigned the lease for Freddie the day he'd turned sixteen, and Freddie was still making payments on the car after a year and a half, but he figured it was worth the sacrifice. Carly had been jealous when she found out that Spencer was cosigning for Freddie, but her father told her that if she waited until she was eighteen, he would buy her a car outright, so she was content to wait.

I wasn't going to be able to afford a car until I was old and gray, at least not on the ten dollars an hour I was making at the department store. I was also banned from getting a license until I was eighteen. I had gotten stopped last year while I was driving my mother home from the hospital, she fell down a flight of stairs after a drinking binge, and the cop said he wouldn't arrest me this time, but my license was suspended. That left me tugging on my shirt in the passenger seat while Freddie drummed distractedly on the steering wheel.

When we'd gotten into the car I gave him directions and instructed him not to speak to me until we arrived, but I could tell that he was working up the courage to defy my request.

"Sam, are you okay?" I gave him an angry nod. "Well, you've been acting a little weird lately." he stopped carefully at a red light, but he didn't dare look over at me, that would violate the safe driving agreement his mother made him sign.

"I'm fine," I barked, "I just don't want to chat with you any more than exploiting you for your car requires."

He shrugged and fell silent for a while, insulted by my brazen answer, and I let my mind wander. I imagined sitting here in this same passenger seat, a few years from now, with a a bouncing toddler in the backseat, giggling happily. It was a nice fantasy and it made me smile, but it didn't seem like it was a feasible future for either Freddie or I. I wasn't sure how I felt about Freddie at this point, anyway. I knew that having a child with him would be the strongest tie I'd ever have to anyone, and I was glad to have him here with me, but there was no love sick, soul mate feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I didn't think there ever would be.

"Sam, we're going to a free clinic?" he studied the sign nervously, somebody had repainted it since the last time I was here.

"Is that a problem for you, Benson?" I kept my eyes away from him as he parked the car and as soon as he cut the engine I jumped out and power walked toward the front door. I hoped he would just figure I needed the pill or something and stay in the car, but I could hear the door slam shut and he grabbed my arm just as I reached out for the door handle.

"Samantha Puckett, what is going on here?" Freddie demanded. I spun around to scold him for using my full name, but the look on his face changed my mind.

He was scared, searching my face for answers. I suddenly felt very alone, I'd brought Freddie here because I knew no one else would come with me. Now he was staring at me like I'd tricked him into doing something terrible again, which I guess I had. It was wrong of me to put Freddie's future in jeopardy like this, even I knew that. We had barely started our Senior year in high school and already, Fredward was a shoe-in for valedictorian, and colleges all over the country were sending him scholarship promises if he attended their school. I'd known since I was a little girl that my life was doomed to be an unrefined second showing of my mother's, but that didn't mean that I had to destroy everyone around me, too. It was wrong and selfish, but I wasn't strong enough to do this alone, I needed Freddie right now.

"Do you remember that bet we made last summer? Well, it turns out that when two people are incredibly naïve and they don't use protection, sometimes the end result is a baby..." his jaw unhinged and his eyes filled with involuntary moisture. He stared and stared at me until I became a little self-conscious. He was studying me, trying to break me down into little pieces and analyze them to force what I'd told him to mean anything other than what it meant. Finally his eyes hardened a little and he stomped into the clinic without me.

I was so shocked that I laughed out loud, a short barking laugh that caught the attention of more than a few people. I bared my teeth at them and stepped into the clinic's lobby. Freddie was at the front desk checking the appointment. The nurse gave him a strange look when she read her chart and found out that Sam Puckett was here for a pre-natal visit.

"You did say Puckett, right?" the nurse asked frowning.

"Yes, should I spell it?" Freddie didn't get what was going on, but I did so I hung back to watch and giggle.

"No, I found the appointment, but you must be mistaken about what name you used, because Sam Puckett is here for a pre-natal exam." the nurse was trying to be polite, but she was obviously annoyed. I guessed that they got a lot of people scamming for drugs here, or something.

"Yes, that's correct." Freddie assured her, still not understanding. I almost couldn't control my laughter as I watched the nurse roll her eyes and point at his stomach and groin.

"You are not pregnant, sir, you are a male." she spoke slowly as if he were mentally incapacitated or just very high, then realization dawned on Freddie and he turned four shades of pink when he realized what she was thinking about him.

"I know that; I'm not Sam, I'm the father!" he shouted at the bewildered nurse, "What kind of health care institution is this anyway, if the nurses can't even make simple deductions?"

"It's a free one," I took him by the elbow, told the nurse that I was, in fact, Samantha Puckett and led Freddie to an exam room to wait for another nurse he would no doubt take his frustrations out on. As we disappeared around a corner I heard the nurse yell that she was going to change my records to reflect my full name so that this wouldn't happen again, and I laughed at the absurdity of that perforce.

"Let go of me Sam," Freddie growled as he wiggled his arm, but I felt like I should establish my role in this procedure, so I held on. "Puckett, let go, now, I'm done playing your games."

"No, my game my rules." I squeezed a little tighter, and generally Freddie would've whined about me manhandling him and try unsuccessfully to wriggle free, while I felt like I had won something, but this time was different. He grabbed my fingers, rather roughly, and pried them easily off his arm, then he threw my arm down by my side and walked out of my reach.

It was a small room, I could have walked over and reattached myself, but I was so shocked at his actions that I stayed put and simply stared at him. He had never once forcibly removed me from his person like that before. I wasn't trying to convince myself that he couldn't, but I did like to think that he was afraid enough of me that he wouldn't. I watched his face as he slumped into a chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He didn't even hassle the nurse when she came in and told me to change in to a hospital gown and the doctor would be right with us, I guess I was wrong about who was going to be on the receiving end of that displaced anger.

I escaped into the small attached bathroom to change and avoid the cruel looks Freddie was throwing my way. It was October and the weather had been unusually warm, Freddie called it our Indian Summer, so I was only wearing a T-shirt and jeans. It took me less than a minute to throw them in a pile on the floor and tie the hospital gown tightly around my waist. There was no way I was going out there to face Freddie again, so I turned on the faucet and pretended I was washing my hands Guinness Book slowly, until I heard the doctor come into the room and ask Freddie if he was Sam Puckett.

"Don't you people even go to medical school, to get a job here?" He leapt up and spun on the doctor, who took a few steps back and checked the chart again. I swelled a little with pride, I taught him well.

"I'm sorry, you're Sam?" he pointed the end of his pen at me. I stepped out from behind the bathroom door and practically flew into the evil chair with stirrups, lest Freddie sneak a look at my bare butt. Despite the fact that he'd seen me naked before and I had never really been easily embarrassed, I felt like I should at least pretend that I wasn't a tramp in front of the doctor.

The doctor smiled at my performance, and checked his chart one last time. "Sam, today we're going to talk about your medical history, check you progress, make sure you're developing normally and, you'll have your first ultrasound." he glanced up at me to make sure I was paying attention so I smiled at him.

He continued to ask me an endless array of questions about my family's medical history, whether I'd ever been pregnant before, when was my last menstrual cycle and the date of the positive pregnancy test. He also asked about any past surgeries and gynecological history. Everything, I didn't want to talk about in front of Freddie, the doctor asked me.

Fortunately, when that was over he asked Freddie several more intrusive questions and sent him out in the hallway to fill out some paperwork for me. While Freddie was conveniently outside the room, the doctor performed a pelvic and cervical exam. He also managed to squeeze in a physical, but he seemed unenthusiastic about it, like he thought it was a waste of time to check a seventeen year old whose last physical was eight months ago anyway. He told me that according to my uterus size, I was about twelve weeks pregnant. He was surprised, though, that I hadn't really noticed that I was pregnant, he said that most women had some definitive symptoms, like morning sickness and tender breasts, but I shrugged and said I was too busy being seventeen to notice that I was pregnant.

Finally, after he gave me a rundown of all the do's and don'ts of pregnancy, the doctor told me to lie down on the hospital bed in the corner and that a nurse would be in shortly to take me to the ultrasound room. As he left he called Freddie back into the room, so I tried to look intimidating, or at least nonchalant, when he came through the door, but I think what I achieved was closer to cold and constipated, because he laughed at me. I hoped that meant all was forgiven, but he pulled his chair as far away from me as possible and turned his back to me while we waited for the nurse.

"Freddie Benson, that is the most childish thing I've ever seen you do." I threw my paper thin pillow at him. "What is wrong with you?"

He turned around in his seat slowly and gave me a look of utter incredulity. "I hope you're just making a really bad joke, Sam because if you don't understand why I'm upset, you're in real trouble." I just stared at him and waited for something more. "Sam, you're pregnant, I'm the the father. You've been pregnant for, what, two months now? Why am I just hearing about this? Would you have told me at all if you hadn't needed a ride today?"

I thought about that for a moment. If I hadn't been so weak minded, I wouldn't have told even though I did need a ride. He certainly wasn't helping me deal with the whirlwind of emotions that kept me up at night, fighting off waves of terror. I thought about having an abortion, after that bus driver had mentioned the clinic. I knew I wasn't ready to have a child, I certainly wasn't ready to face the wrath of my mother, when she found out, but I also wasn't about to give up the one thing that I desperately wanted out of this situation, unconditional love. I knew the theory that lay behind the words, but I had never felt that pull toward anyone, the bond that could outlast any stupid fight or all the unpleasant circumstances that life could conjure.

"Freddie, I wouldn't have told you if I could have avoided it. You obviously would have done better not knowing anyway." he glared at me unsure of what to say. "Don't pretend some part of you doesn't wish this was someone else's problem, that I was someone else's problem."

"Give, me a break Sam, you basically just told me that my future was ruined, and you want me to tell you that I'm happy or something? We're not some well-to-do married couple, we're just kids who didn't know what they were getting themselves into." I'd never seen Freddie act like this before, he was being almost hateful toward me.

"That's just fine, Fredward, if you feel that way, then I don't need you." I crossed my arms defiantly at him. He smirked inwardly and shook his head sadly.

"That's the thing, Sam, you do need me. You need me to drive you home, you need Carly to remind you to do your homework so that you can graduate high school, you need your mothers welfare check to pay for your food and clothes and everything else your job won't cover, and you need Spencer's couch when you can't stand the home you can't afford to move out of anymore. Everyone around you is still supporting you, still taking care of you. How do think you're going to bring a child into this world and give it anything better than the squalor you've had your whole life?" His face was red with fury and his hands were shaking a little.

I could see that he was angry, but tears were welling up in my eyes and there was no way he was going to see that display, right now. I picked up a handful of tongue depressor and started chucking them at his head, one by one until he couldn't take it anymore and he retreated from the room; just in time for me to erupt into sobs. He was right about me, I was irresponsible and immature. I had no right to have a baby, and it was plain selfish to keep it, when there were people out there willing to devote themselves to giving someone else's child a better life. That was what got me though, it was my child and no one was taking that from me.

I was still crying when a nurse crept into the room and silently wheeled my bed into another area lined with machines. I lay perfectly still as she explained that the doctor recommended a pelvic rather than a transvaginal ultrasound. She explained that based on the fact that I was already a few weeks behind the average woman, they were going to have to play catch up for a while. She assured me that all of the standard tests would still be run, but that my results may come too late to make any real changes in the pregnancy. She meant that if it turned out that I was having a mutant demon baby, it would be too late to murder it. I didn't like this lady very much.

After she was done with her speech, she squeezed some cold blue goop onto my bulging stomach and waved a wand across the taught skin. I could see little red stretch marks starting to form already. This was really turning out to be a bad day. The ultrasound tech was pointing at the small screen and chatting animatedly to herself about things like crown to rump length and fingernails. I wasn't interested, at this point. Everything I'd known was falling to pieces around me and I thought that of all people, I'd be able to count on Freddie to think clearly in a stressful situation, not that he was ever an expert in that area, but he'd matured with the years. Now I was sitting alone in a dark room, with some airhead that obviously didn't grasp the fact that I was only seventeen years old and being able to see the baby growing in my stomach wasn't really the joyous occasion that she thought it should be.

Finally, after she had pointed out every tiny finger and toe she wiped my belly off and let me get dressed again. The doctor stopped by to see me one more time to tell me what to expect in the next few weeks until my second visit and to confirm that, according to the ultrasound pictures I was exactly thirteen weeks pregnant. I asked him how many weeks that left until I was done cooking this thing. He told me that there were a total of forty weeks in a gestational period, which meant that there were twenty-seven weeks left until my due date, May 6, but that only about three percent of babies are actually born on their due dates.

"So you basically have no idea, you're just throwing out numbers to make me shut up?" I snapped at him, still discontent with the whole pregnancy thing.

"I can tell you that you will almost certainly deliver your baby between April 22 and May 20, is that a close enough estimation for you, or shall I get to work inventing a more precise method than we have in place?" he grinned at me and waited for me to say something, but when I refused, he told me he'd see me in a few weeks and left the room. This was just great, not even the doctor could give me a straight answer about when this was all going to be over. I left the room and slammed the door behind me, which gathered the attention of three passing nurses, I glared at them and stomped down the hallway into the lobby to confirm my next appointment.

While I was at the desk trying to explain to the girl behind the glass wall, that I was not a new patient, I was trying to confirm my third visit here, I felt someone's breath on my shoulder.

"Try looking under Samantha, instead of Sam," Freddie said over my shoulder.

"What are you still here for?" I demanded putting my hands on my hips to show him how displeased I was with him.

"Oh, here you are, you were right, you have been here before." The girl was obviously not all there, she was probably filling in for the airhead that was sitting here when we came in. She took a manila envelope from her stack of papers. "Kristi left this here for you."

I took the envelope from her and didn't ask questions, probably something unpleasant I had to do before my next appointment, like drink eighty tons of water or something. Freddie reached for it, but I held it out of his reach and made my way to the front door without acknowledging him. When we were outside again, he stepped into my path.

"Sam, I know you're mad at me, but I've been thinking. There is no reason for me to get on my high horse and tell you what you can and can't do. No amount of lecturing you is going to make the baby disappear so I might as well just be supportive." he finished his thought and started walking toward his car, I didn't have much choice, but to follow.

"So where does that put us?" I asked as I was buckling myself in.

"It puts us the same place we've always been. Sam, we're not some fated lovers that were always meant to be." he glanced over at me to make sure that I wasn't going to hit him, but I was too surprised at his honesty to even consider it. "Will you let me take care of you, and the baby?"

"I thought we weren't destined to be together, why would I need you to take care of me, if I'm free to find someone who actually likes me?" my feelings were a little hurt. I didn't want to fall in love with Freddie or anything, but I did kind of want to be the one to reject him.

"I'll just pay for your ham until you find someone who will do it instead, okay?" he winked at me.

"Alright," I agreed, grudgingly.


	5. June 18

**A/N: **I realize it took me over a year to update this, but I _have_ been working on it sporadically throughout the year. Still I apologize. Please review if you read, because it takes 3 minutes and I might update more often if you did...actually pearlbutton328's review is the entire reason that I updated tonight. So thanks for that!

October eventually faded away into November and the Indian Summer disapeared as well, dousing the city in blustery, dreary weather, and while the fall leaves were withering and falling out of the trees, my once flat stomach was blossoming into something unrecognizable. I was seriously considering buying some maternity pants, but I couldn't convince myself to pull that horrible stretchy part up over my bellybutton-pants do not belong there. Freddie thought I was being silly, and he was right, but so many things were happening to my body that I didn't like and couldn't control, I was determined to make at least this small decision in my own time.

Freddie had vowed to 'take care of me', until I no longer needed him, and aparently that meant spending my Sunday evening draped over a beanbag chair in his bedroom, watching him do homework. Not that I was complianing. A gaint plate of assorted cold cuts was resting on my knee and I was currently partaking in my fifth peppy cola. I lifted the can above my face and slowly poured it out into my mouth.

"Sam, that's bad for the baby, and you're going to get it all over my floor." Freddie condemned me, not that I wasn't used to it by now.

"The doctor said that I could have 250 mg of caffeine everyday, and that means that I can have five cans today," I shot back. The fact that he was the one to figure this out for me made no dent in my indignance.

"That is your last can, then. Are you trying to sabatoge yourself?" he glared at me and I put the can on the hardwood.

I knew what I wasn't supposed to do, and I didn't want to hurt my child, but I was used to drinking and eating whatever I wanted. Last year I spent my lunch hours attempting to beat my personal record for speed eating forty fat cakes, and now I was taking a pass on the fat cakes in favor of lean meat and fresh greens. This is what hell must be like. I imagined myself eating piles of sugary, caffinated food products in a few months, six months if my May due date was anything to judge by. At least then I'd be fat anyway, I wouldn't even have to worry about where those calories were going to reappear on my body.

"Sam, are you listening to me?" Freddie was waving a hand in front of my face. Apparently, he'd been talking while I was day-dreaming.

"Not really, I was thinking about fat cakes." I tried to look innocent, but that's never been my strong suit. Freddie smiled endearingly at me, and I wondered why I'd not seen that look in a while.

Neither of us had been entirely happy since I'd broken up our trio three months ago, we were going through the motions most days simply because that's what we used to do when we were a team. Carly, Freddie and I were supposed to be inseparable, had always been inseparable, and so we'd never planned for a time when Freddie had to precariously divide his time between the two of us, or Carly and I had to take alternate routes to class to avoid the empty stares that were our only form of communication now. I hadn't spoken a word to Carly in months, and after spending six years sharing my every thought with her, I was feeling lost, I was searching for who I was without my best friend.

"Freddie, do you remember last summer?" We'd spent most of our vacation planning what our lives would be like after high school and not once during those twelve blissfully carefree weeks did we imagine that it was going to end like this.

"Well, it wasn't the least memorable three months of my life; I managed to lose my virginity, make a baby, and derail my entire future." He was still smiling, and I took that as a good sign, or at the very least an indication that he wasn't going to start bawling.

"That's not really what I meant. That was the last day of summer, anyway, there was plenty that happened before getting pregnant that's worth remembering." I closed my eyes and stretched my arms and legs out spread eagle, taking up as much space as I could. "Like early in the summer, when you and Carly and I went to that picnic, the one at William's Park, remember?" I said, but Freddie wasn't listening, he was busy tapping away at his computer.

He was revising an essay about Brave New World for his english class. I'd finished mine by the end of school Friday, but Freddie was on his third rough draft and would have the whole thing laminated and smelling of freshly picked roses by the time he turned it in, although he would also probably set the curve, whereas I was aiming for a C plus. Freddie didn't want to talk about anything that he couldn't quantify, but I didn't mind that he was ignoring me because, I was lost in thought by this time anyway.

"I am so excited about this picnic!" Carly squealed from the backseat of Freddie's car. That was the fourteenth time she'd made the same exclamation, I'd counted. The Bushwell Baking Commitee selected Carly to present the winner of the annual baking contest with the grand prize, a giant check for five hundred dollars, not that fascinating for Freddie and I, but it meant that Carly was going to have her picture taken for the local newspaper, and she couldn't wait.

"Well, that's a relief, because I thought you wanted to stay home." Freddie chided. Ten minutes before we left for William's Park, Carly had decided that she was hideous and couldn't be seen in public, let alone have her picture in the paper. It took some convincing, mostly Freddie assuring her that she was the most beautiful creature alive, but eventually she was in the car and happy to be on her way.

"I'm just glad we're finally here, it's already three-thirty," I said as Freddie pulled into the parking lot. "Do you think there will be any fat cakes at the concession stand, this year?"

"Considering the fact that you spent a hundred and twenty bucks on them last year, they probably brought them back." Freddie laughed at me and patted my stomach as it growled.

"Hey buck-o, just because we're friends now, doesn't mean you can go around patting my tummy like I'm some underfed buddah." I shook my fist at him, but he didn't pay any attention to my threats anymore, they had long ago become idle.

He parked the car and we piled out into the soft summertime grass, the smell of fried batter and hot dogs drifted our way. The park was swarming with sweet motherly types from the apartment complex, kids were running around trying to tag one another into oblivion and dad's were trying to ignore the whole ordeal. They stood off to the side in a huddle talking loudly about whos son was going to be the next big fotball star. It was the same scene every year, but I never got tired of the homeliness. When I was surrounded by all those people who were so normal and functional, I could imagine myself in a few years feeding cookies to other people's kids and yelling at my own brood of children not to get their clothes dirty.

Carly spread our red checkered tablecloth over one of the few empty tables and threw her picnic basket in the middle, so we could unload the obligatory potato salad and coleslaw. After we had ooh-ed and ah-ed at everyone's baked goods we were free to wander around the park at our leisure. We migrated to our usual spot, a small clearing surrounded by trees, it was perfect for spying on the neighbors without the risk of being caught. Carly found it for us during our first picnic together in junior high, and we'd claimed it as ours every year thereafter.

"There are voices coming from our hiding place," Freddie frowned as we got closer. There was muffled laughter floating through the branches, caught on the wind.

We stopped to listen, but couldn't hear anything distinct through the branhes. We'd done a good job choosing our secret location, because there was no way we could see or hear anything useful unless we broke into the ring of trees where we could be seen. So, we pushed our way through the foliage and stopped just on the outskirt of the clearing, there were three kids, no older than twelve, sitting off to one side, far enough away from us that they couldn't hear our entrance, but if they looked over they would certainly see us standing there staring incredulously at them.

"Did you see what Mrs. Johnson was wearing?" one of the two girls asked with mischief in her tone, her red hair glinting in the sunlight.

"Why would her husband let her out of the house in those rags?" The other girl was smaller and her jet black hair was short and pixie-like. They thought they were up to something very devilish and grown-up, I could tell by the way they held themselves and ignored the boy who was about as desperate for their attention as Freddie had been for Carly's.

"Come on guys, let's go do something else," The boy spoke up. His soft features and mousey brown hair gave him the look of somone who's used to spending most of his free time indoors, surrounded by electronics.

"Zip it, Andy," the pixie snapped, playfully. She didn't look back at him, though. Mrs. Johnson was far worthier of her attention than he.

"_Come on, guys, I'm a pathetic nub, and my mommy might not like this._ You're such a girl, Br_andy_." The redhead turned and faced him, she was a spitfire, and the grin on her face suggested that teasing her companion was far more fun for her than she'd admit. The boy, Andy, made an appropriately rude comment regarding her attitude, but when she turned back around to resume peering through the trees, he was smiling, too.

"We should go," Freddie looked uncomfortable.

"We could always kick them out and reclaim our land," I whispered, not because I needed to be quiet, but because it felt conspiratory.

"Or we can go sit by the lake and plan our amazing senoir year," Carly suggested, and that was a far more appealing idea to both Freddie and I than beating up children, even if this was our place first.

We departed quietly, and the kids never noticed us at all, it made me wonder if at that first picnic, we'd been intuded upon. An entire conversation might have gone on ten feet from us and we wouldn't have noticed. Ms. Briggs was adorned in a long flowing dress patterned with pink flamingos and a floppy straw hat that year, nothing could've pulled us away from that spectacle.

We'd never spent any time down by the lake, we assumed it was where the boring older kids went to talk about summer jobs and college funds, but mostly it was scattered with teenagers on blankets laughing heartily, or trying to lose themselves in each other's eyes. We found a place in the sand and plopped down, not far from a pile of wood that promised to be a bonfire once the sun went down and the parents went home. There were several kids that went to school with us lounging around with their toes in the water and I was sure that I'd never seen them at the picnics before. Maybe they'd been hiding, too, or maybe they'd just wandered out to the lakefront sooner than us.

"So, I've been thinking about this, actually." Carly started as soon as her butt hit sand. "We should do as many stupid, fun things as we can this year. We'll be going off to different colleges and I want to spend our last year together doing things we'll never forget."

"What do you mean 'last year together'?" Freddie was apalled, but I was remembering something Freddie said to me last month, about doing things he'd want to remember when he was older.

"She means that you've already been accepted in the computer engineering program at UCLA. Do you think we'll be following you there?" I asked him, surprised that this hadn't occured to him yet.

"I know you won't," he sighed.

"Well, I would love to go to UCLA, but I don't have the grades for that, even if I pulled a 4.0 all year, I wouldn't qualify." Carly shrugged, she was a considerably better student than I, but she had let her grades dip in the past year.

"Actually, if you had a 4.0 all year, you would qualify, but your extra-cirriculars aren't nearly impressive enough to get you an interview." Freddie pointed out, and Carly kicked his ankle. "I mean, Washington State is a good school, actually it's a very good school."

"Thanks a lot, Fredward." She mumbled.

"It's not important right now, anyway, Carly, you have great options and you'll have even more if you want them, just apply yourself this year and bring your GPA up a little, it'll work out fine."

"Yeah, and if you decide to go to WSU we can still hang out," I said cheerfully. I didn't have any plans for college, I figured I'd just keep my job at Penny's and work my way up the ranks until I ran the store. I was already a department manager and I liked retail alright, plus any college that looked at my application would just laugh.

"Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about," Carly grimaced, "College talk is no fun."

"Alright, what did you have planned?" Freddie encouraged.

"I want us to have a last hurrah," she gushed, almost too impressed with herself to breathe. Freddie and I looked at each other skeptically. "I'm serious, we should go somewhere exotic next summer, just get away from everything in Seattle for a few weeks and be young and free for the last time before we have to say good-bye and go be adults for the rest of our lives. What do you think?"

"It sounds fanciful," Freddie intoned.

"Wow, that's the most ridiculous thing Freddie's said in a while," I giggled. "I think it sounds like a great idea. I just don't think we have the capicity to pull it off." I knew I was dragging Carly down, but reality had to make an appearance at some point.

"Sam, I just don't want to be those friends who grow up together, and promise that they'll always keep in touch, then twelve birthdays and four Christmases pass without cards or phone calls and somewhere deep down you know you're not really friends anymore, but you can't admit that you've let your childhood slip through your fingers while you were busy growing up." the whole sentence rushed out of Carly in one breath and she looked embarassed to have it out in the open.

"We won't be those friends, that doesn't have to happen to everyone. Look at Spencer and Socko, they've know each other forever and even though they live a thousand miles apart they're still best friends." Freddie was red faced, too, we'd never talked about what our relationship would be like after high school. We knew it was going to be different, but I guess we didn't stop to think about the practical implication of an adult relationship.

"Carly, hasn't everything we've been through together convinced you that we'll always be there for each other? I mean, Freddie saved your life, how could he just walk away from you now, and you keep me grounded, I need you to tell me when I'm being too crazy."

"I guess, but what about you and Freddie, what keeps you two together?" She pointed at the space between us, as though some invisible memory were lingering there, binding us indefinitely.

"You do," we said in unison.

When I opened my eyes, it was dark outside. Freddie was still sitting at his computer desk and the blue light reflected eerily off his face, my mind was at William's Park on the lakefront. The invisible memory Carly had asked about was troubling me; at the time, we'd laughed awkwardly at ourselves, and hurriedly changed the subject. Three months later Freddie and I were here in his bedroom on a Sunday night, while Carly partied until sunup with a crowd of vagrants.

"Freddie?" he wasn't expecting my voice, and he jerked a little in his seat, rattling the monitor.

"You know, you snore more now that you're pregnant." he laughed to himself, but swiveled in his seat to look at me.

"That's good news, let me update my blog," I rolled my eyes, that wasn't the most important thing on my mind. "Why are you here tonight?"

"This is my bedroom, Sam." Freddie was confused and a little concerned about my question, not sure where it was leading. "What are you asking me?"

"Why didn't you go out with Carly, like you should? I know she invited you, and even I'd be there, if I wasn't knocked up." He didn't seem to understand why I was asking him.

"I don't know, it's sad watching Carly stand off to one side with a drink in her hand looking around for you everytime someone says your name. I only went along before because you two are so much fun to watch; your excitement is infectious." he faced his computer again and started shuffling papers on his desk.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to think about my strong, confident friend quietly drinking her memories of me away in a dark corner where I couldn't help her. I pictured Carly standing alone with red plastic cups littering the ground around her, it _was _ sad, nothing like the girl I'd known.

"I do remember the picnic, Sam, and we were wrong." I didn't ask what about. "What do you think of this?"

He was holding up a red portfolio with his essay inside, double-spaced in twelve point easy-to-read font. It was impressive, and shiny, but he didn't need my validation, the A plus would suffice.

"You probably could've used a less annoying font, and don't you know that red has been proven to incite rage in most people. For instance, I want to pummel you with that thing right now."

"You could've just said it looks nice."


	6. November 25

Fall only lasted about three weeks before winter took hold, I dug out my coats and long underwear on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I wasn't looking forward to spending twenty minutes taking my pants off everytime I had to pee, which was often, but the extra bulk would conceal my still growing belly. As the holidays crept nearer the days became short and cold, as did the conversations with my mother, she barely acknowledged my existence anymore, and I wasn't sure if that had something to do with her new boyfriend or the fact that she knew what a pregnant teenager looked like, because she'd been one.

"Hey," she barked at me as I passed through the living room.

I was on my way to Freddie's for Thanksgiving dinner. She didn't think just the two of us warranted her slaving over the stove for eight hours, then ordering take out when she burned everything, so there wasn't any reason for me to stick around.

"What?" I snapped back, because that was our game. Who could be nastier to whom?

"Why are you so fat?" I never won. "Are you pregnant?"

I was too shocked to lie, I was groping for something creative to say, and all I came up with was, "yes". She scoffed as though she'd expected this news from the day I was born. She liked to say that she could've had one child that sometimes did the right thing and sometimes screwed up, instead she'd had one that always did right and one that never quite got there. I was a disappointment, Melanie was not. I was pregnant, Melanie was not.

"You've got until that thing pops out to find somewhere else to live." and she went back to whatever was so much more important than me.

When I stepped out of the elevator on Freddie's floor, I could see Spencer standing in the doorway to the Benson's apartment. He was waving a measuring cup around, and telling Freddie what must've been a wild story, while Mrs. Benson tried to capture the cup.

"...and then Socko yelled, 'hey you guys!' like in the movie-oh sorry Mrs. Benson, just a half cup of molasses if you don't mind-anyway..." I wasn't listening anymore, because I was close enough to look in the open door to the Shay's apartment.

Carly was sitting alone on the couch, surfing the internet on her pearpad. The house smelled like takeout and barbeque sauce, I wondered why Spencer needed the molasses, maybe dessert. Usually on Thanksgiving, we let Mrs. Benson prepare a family dinner and we all suffered through her ranting while we enjoyed free food, but this year was going to be different. Apparently, Spencer and Carly wouldn't be joining us, and I felt bad for taking this away from them, it was their tradition that I'd included myself in for years, and now I'd stolen it altogether.

"Hey there, Sam," Spencer petted my hair as he passed back through his doorway. Carly looked up at the sound of my name. There was a reactionary joy in her eyes, but when they met mine, her gaze hardened.

"Shut the door," she ordered, Spencer shrugged, and pulled the door shut behind himself.

"Sam, come inside, don't torture yourself," Freddie threw an arm around my shoulders and herded me inside.

"I ruined the holiday for them, like my mom tried to ruin it for me." I told him quietly, as we climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Mrs. Benson hollered at us that dinner would be ready at six, not a moment later.

"We invited them this year, same as last year. Carly is making the calculated choice to sever your friendship, you haven't done anything to push them out of our Thanksgiving." he pushed me gently toward what had become my beanbag chair.

"Well, I did imply that she was a tramp moments after asking for her help, because I'd gotten myself pregnant," I lowered myself gingerly into the beanbag. I was getting too pregnant to be flopping down on the floor anymore; I was liable to break something.

"That was bad, but it's been months." there was nothing more consoling for him to say. I had betrayed my best friend and I couldn't blame her for being angry. "What did you mean when you said your mom tried to 'ruin it' for you?"

"On my way out the door earlier, she asked me if I was pregnant, so I told her yes. I have to move out before the baby's born." I hoped this news wasn't as devastating to him as it had been to me.

"Do you think she chose today on purpose?" he was skeptical. "Maybe, she didn't notice before."

"I've been conspicuously filling out my clothes lately. I don't think I look any more pregnant today than I did last week, so she probably did it on purpose." I shrugged.

I was used to my mother's particular brand of dysfuntional parenting. Her ridiculous attempts to amuse herself didn't bother me anymore, what upset me was that she sat around actually planning new schemes to make _me_ miserable.

"I'm sorry," Freddie said. He looked sorry, and his voice was softer than usual.

"It doesn't matter, it's not going to ruin my day, so don't let it ruin yours, either." I said.

The smell of turkey was wafting up the stairs, along with a hint of Mrs. Benson's homemade stuffing. For the first time in my life I wished my mother was just a little more like Freddie's mom. When I came home from school with Freddie, there was always a plate of snacks ready for us, and even though we resented her for it, Mrs. Benson checked in on us every thirty minutes, just to make sure we were alright. I considered it a treat if my mom glanced up when I opened the front door.

"Want to trade moms for a few days?" I asked smiling.

"You'd kill my mom after the first twenty minutes, and your mom would kill me." Freddie laughed. He was probably picturing his mother in a headlock the first time she tried to give me a tick bath.

"This is working out just fine for me, on second thought," I giggled, the image was pretty awesome.

"It won't matter in few months anyway." Freddie pointed out.

"Thanks for bringing it back to the depressing side, Freddo." I slumped in my beanbag. "I don't know why we can't just live there, the stupid apartment is big enough for three people."

"Your mother doesn't like her own children, plus you don't want your baby growing up in that enviornment."

Mrs. Benson poked her head in the door and asked if everything was going okay up here. She looked stressed and there was gravy on her forhead. Every year she promised that food was going to be on the table at six, and when five-thirty rolled around, she still had an hour worth of cooking left to do. Somehow, probably through some domestic magic that I would never understand, dinner was on the table, and delicious at six.

What I wanted was for my child to grow up with a mother that knew she was supposed to cook turkey on Thanksgiving and ham on Christmas, someone who knew when to threaten the neighbor's kid and not to show a hallway full of teenagers naked baby pictures. I wanted my child to have a mother and a father. I'd never been close to anyone with a real dad, the kind that played catch with them, or played poker, or whatever dads were supposed to do, so I could only imagine. In my mind, though, it was better than a mom who resented me for driving my father away, or one who was so afraid to lose her baby that she never let him grow up.

"...but first I need somewhere to live, okay?" I said.

"Uh..." Freddie stared at me for a second, but let the coment pass. "I have some ideas, if you want to hear them."

"How can you have ideas? I just told you about this half an hour ago." Freddie was good, but he wasn't that good.

"Sam, I never expected you to stay at home with your mother after the baby was born." It was a good thing one of us thought ahead. "I've been talking to people for about a month about places you might be able to live."

"I don't know why you didn't think I needed to know about that, and I can't live anywhere until I'm eighteen," I shouldn't have been poking holes in his plan, I didn't have any other options.

"True, but that's fine, you've only got two months until your birthday. You don't have to go anywhere until May." Freddie said. He pulled a folder from his desk drawer and fanned out several sheets of paper. Mostly charts, and graphs, but there were a few printed pictures of what I assumed were apartment complexes. It was a little overwhelming to see concrete evidence that I wasn't doing enough for this child, and it wasn't even born yet.

"Well, I don't have enough money to move out. I need deposits and stuff, right? Plus, even if I can cover the bills, how am I going to afford food, and diapers?" I shot back.

"Those are things to consider when we look at this list of possible aprtments. You make a lot more money than you think you do, though. You just spend it all on stupid things, like trampolines and fat cakes. I bet you've saved a fair amount, now that you don't spend all of your free time at the mall with Carly."

"I don't know, maybe." I knew how much I had, but I wasn't going to committ to anything yet. I was still hoping that if I did nothing about it, things would work themselves out.

"Alright Sam, but I'm not going to stop looking. I can't have you raising my child under a bridge." I could tell he was annoyed with me, but he managed to keep his expression nuetral as he gathered his research and stuffed it back into it's folder.

I didn't reply, because Mrs. Benson popped her head into the room and announced that dinner was ready. We followed her into the dining room where the long oak table was covered with Thanksgiving Dinner staples. There was a larger than nesecary turkey sitting at the head of the table, and a median of casserole dishes decorated the center. I was so excited, I almost drooled a little.

Since Freddie was the man of the house this year, Mrs. B let him sit at the head and serve the turkey. She of course carved it beforehand, because he wasn't permitted to use any kitchen gadget with sharp edges. When all the food was finally doled out, Freddie said a quick prayer and we dug in.

"This is great, Mrs. B," I said around a mouthful of turkey.

"Sam," she admonished with a smile, "Is that how you're going to teach your child to eat?"

I choked on my half chewed mouthful and had to down most of my glass of cider, before I was able to get enough breath to form a sentence. Freddie's face was colorless, he couldn't even pick his jaw up off the table to speak.

"I..." Mrs. Benson was now giving me a hard look, I don't know what she expected me to say to her. "Do you hate me?" I hated how feeble my voice sounded.

"No, I'm disappointed in your choices," was all she said.

Luckily for me, Freddie's mom had been reigning in her crazy, lately.

Months ago she and Freddie had a very loud discussion about the way she treated him. He told her that he wasn't going to allow her to treat him like an eight year old any longer, and he deftly worked the time he moved out into the conversation, then followed up with the insinuation that if she continued to treat him that way, he wasn't going to come home next time. She still looked like she was going to explode everytime he told her he was staying out past nine-thirty, but she was dealing with her neuroticism in other ways, namely cleaning the apartment until it was literally squeaky clean. Even in my sock feet, I made creepy squeaking noises evrytime I raided the fridge.

"So are you going to ban me from your house forever?" Thanksgiving dinner was not when I wanted to have this discussion. My stuffing was getting cold.

"Why would I do that?" She looked utterly confused, and it suddenly occured to me that she hadn't figured out that Freddie was the father yet.

"I—we—" I glanced desperately over at Freddie. Surely he knew some magic way to diffuse this.

"Mom, we really don't need to talk about this right now." he squeaked in a not at all reassuring manner.

"Apparently we do," Mrs. Benson pushed her chair back and crossed her arms, comprehension darkening her features. "Who's the father, Sam?"

"Uh..." I faltered.

"Mom! She—" his mother cut him off.

"Sam, I asked you who the father is." She didn't look at Freddie, didn't even blink.

I gripped the sides of my chair and squeezed my eyes shut, pretending that when I opened them, I'd be somewhere else, William's Park maybe. She knew, I'm sure, what the answer to her question was, but she wouldn't believe it until she heard it out loud.

"Samantha Puckett, I demand an answer," her face was blotchy and pained. I felt worse telling her than I had with Freddie.

"Mrs. B, please," I searched her face for a hint of sympathy. "You don't want to do this now."

"Mom, I wanted to tell you," Freddie didn't seem to know what to say, either.

"Tell me, then!" she burst, unable to keep her composure any longer.

"Freddie," I whispered. "Freddie is the father."

Mrs. Benson's face crumpled and her shoulders slumped over. She looked at us for a long monent without saying anything. I tensed, waiting for her to start screaming and throw us out of the house, or forbid me from contacting her family ever again. The air in the room had gotten so thick I had trouble taking a breath, and the smell of cranberry sauce was turning my stomach.

"You two have ruined your lives," her voice made me jump, it was so cold. "I won't speak for Sam's mother, but Freddie, I'm ashamed of you. How long have you been lying to me, and how else are you embarassing this family behind my back?"

"Mom, I'm—" his voice broke, and I was afraid to look at him. I kept my shoulders hunched over and started intently at the napkin in my lap.

"I don't want to hear it. I have devoted my life to you, and it is frankly insulting that you would allow something like this to happen. I taught you better." her voice faltered and a few tears slid down her cheeks. "I don't want to see you two out here when I come back. Go upstiars." She stood and walked briskly across the room and out of sight. A few seconds later there was the distinct sound of her bedroom door slamming.

Freddie looked on the verge of tears, so I loaded a plate with as much food as I could, who knew when we'd be allowed out of exile, and led the way up to his room. He followed silently, not daring to look anywhere but his shoes. When we got upstairs, I lowered myself gingerly onto my beanbag, but Freddie just stood in the middle of the floor looking lost. I stared at him, staring at nothing.

It took his mother no more than five minutes to regain herself, and we could hear her out in the kitchen clearing plates and dumping our half eaten meals in the trash. Neither Freddie nor I knew what to do with ourselves. I could tell that he wanted to bury himself in his comfortor and forget this mess, but with me sitting in the middle of his bedroom, floor he had an obligation to pretend to be strong.

"Freddie?" I tried to stand up, but it was too much effort.

"What?" his voice was husky.

"Are you okay?" It was a stupid question. What is there to say in a situation like this? What I wanted to say was 'I know you want to cry and I understand. Hell, _I_ want to cry, too'. I don't that would've been well received.

"I'm not okay, Sam...you're not okay. We're losing ourselves in this, and there is no way out. There will never be some happy day in the future where we aren't teenage parents, you will be lucky to finish High School, let alone go to college. I could lose my scholarship over this, so there goes my education, too. We're going to be one of those made for TV movies, without the happy ending where money magically doesn't matter." He was shaking and his face was red, a few rouge tears were racing down his cheeks, but he wiped them away guiltily. I wasn't sure what to say, he wasn't wrong. I didn't expect to go to college, even after I got my acceptance letter, I had a terrible feeling that it wasn't real. I was proving to myself and everyone else that I was no better than the convicts and conmen I was related to, I had no chance at a future.

"I don't want to be a loser, Freddie. I was going to have a better life than the rest of my family. I promised my sister that I wouldn't let Mom turn me into one of them, but I turned myself into a loser."

"No you didn't, Sam." he sat next to me, because now I was crying. "I'm sorry I said that, it was mean. We have a plan, and we just have to follow it. Everything will be fine."

He didn't believe it and neither did I.


	7. December 15

Freddie and I were only stuck in his room for about two hours, before the front door slammed and the house fell silent. We were curled up on the floor pouring over our "plan", trying to pretend it was the answer to all our problems. According to our magical loose leaf, all we had to do was find an apartment that I could pay for on a part-time, barely above minimum wage job, buy all the baby stuff at thrift stores, and hope that the baby didn't have to poop more often than we could afford diapers. That should be easy.

Freddie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, deliberately. He said he was going to spend the rest of Thanksgiving Break looking for a job to help support us, he was willing to do anything as long as there was a paycheck on Fridays.

I ran my hand dismally through my hair, and snagged my fingers on a knot halfway down, it tugged painfully at my scalp. I could feel the salt from my tears drying on my cheeks and my puffy eyes were already sore. I groaned and let my body go limp in exasperation. "This is hopeless, let's just see if we can sell her to the circus."

"Sam!" Freddie's eyes tested the boundaries of his sockets in response.

"Relax Freddo, we're just brainstorming, right? We're bound to throw some bad one's into the mix."

"It's not funny for me to think about abandoning our child, Sam, and what makes you so sure it's a 'she'?"

"A mother knows."

It turned out that Freddie didn't have to look long to find a job. All he had to do was drive me to work the next morning and look helpless while my manager screamed about how much work there was to do before the store opened. Al was so stressed about Black Friday sales that when he found out Freddie nedded a job, he hired him on the spot and didn't even bother to get his name until the next day.

Most years black Friday wasn't awful, but corporate had picked our store to visit for quality assurance this year. They were going to send some idiot in a suit, who would never actually stoop to shopping in a store like this, to walk around and decide whether or not we were at 'optimum shopping' level. No matter how much screaming Al did, this store was never going to look like a showroom, and the suit wasn't going to give us a perfect report.

Freddie proved to be an asset to the presentation of our store. He was assigned to the misses department, where the bulk of the ransacking was happening. Thanks to his dedication, and the fact that his Mom taught him everything she knew about laundry, Freddie managed to impress the corporate suit with his fairly decent section of store. He hid behind shelves for most of the day furiously folding what the super mom's threw in all directions in search of the 'perfect sweater vest' for a teenager that really just wanted cash.

After his first day, Freddie replaced me as the closer, which meant he was expected to stay as lond as it took each night to "recover" his section. He hadn't been home until one or two in the morning for the past three weeks. The first few nights I waited up for him, but he was too tired to drive me home anyway, so I slipped in next to him and spent the night. Now I didn't even bother waiting up for him, or saving him much room on the bed. If he minded, he wasn't saying.

"Freddie, it's time to wake up," I sang. Today we found out the baby's gender, but not if Freddie didn't roll out of bed in time for the appointment.

He groaned and pulled the covers up, half awake and in a terrible mood. I proceeded to poke him joyfully until he growled and crawled out of his cave. He roared unintelligibly at me and stumbled into the bathroom. When he reappeared, he had transformed himself from grizzly bear to anxious father-to-be. His hands were trying to choke one another to death, and his eyes were darting around the room like he was looking for something, but never quite focusing on any one thing.

"Why are you so nervous? Knowing the sex isn't going to change anything other than what color bibs we buy." I said.

"Maybe, but once 'it' turns into 'he' or 'she', everything gets real. We have to choose a name, buy a car seat, diapers."

He sighed and shook himself from head to toe, then lead me out the door, without another word. We didn't say much an the drive to the clinic either, but I could tell he was still thinking about how his life was changing by the way he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel; it was sporadic and stilted, nervous but more than that, it was an abject sort of tapping that filled my ears and blocked out the radio until all I could hear was the hollow _taptap tap taptaptap tap _of his thumbs colliding with the plastic. I lolled my head back on the seat and tried to muffle the noise by imagining what my life would be like this time next year, with a baby; nothing came to me, but the sound of Freddie's resignation. By the time we rolled into a parking spot, my breath was coming in sharp gasps; it had taken all my resolve not to throttle Freddie on the ride. I threw the door open before the car was off and hurried toward the door. I only mad it a few yards before Freddie caught me above the elbow and forced me to stop.

"Are you okay? You look worse than I feel."

"Well if I was nervous you just cleared it right up." I snipped. "I'm fine, I was just going crazy with you tapping your fingers for the last half hour."

It wasn't true, but how was I supposed to explain that I was suffocating under the weight of his grief? I deserved this burden, and I owed it to Freddie to bear it quietly. He pulled his shoulders up by his ears, then let them drop listlessly; I imitated his movement, but failed to capture the hollow stare he wore. There was no solution to settle on standing out in the snow, slipping on the newly melted patches.

The snow crunched against the bottom of my shoes as I advanced on the clinic. Just as I reached for the door, I put my fur lined boot down on a nearly invisible patch of ice; my weight _whooshed_ out from underneath me, and I flailed my arms out in front of my body in a desperate attempt to steady myself on the door handle, but it was already too late. Instead of the painful impact I had braced myself for, there was a jolt at my shoulders, my entire body weight suddenly supported under my armpits, and Freddie's arms wrapped tightly around my chest. He pulled me to a standing position, but was slow to release me from this awkward bear hug. My heart pounded in my ears and I could feel a flush heating my cheeks. I pressed my weight back into his body reminding myself that he was stronger than I thought. When his grip slackened, he dipped his hand down and rested it gently on my stomach. He lingered for only a moment, but it was long enough to remind me that I was just a vehicle.

Most of the visit was a daze after that. I couldn't stop thinking about the rush of warmth I'd felt for just the breifest moment with Freddie's arms around me. His embrace offered the safety and security that I'd been searching for most of my life.

The only moment that I remembered with any clarity happened while the ultrasound tech had her wand pressed against my skin. She was doing the pointing and babbling again while I tried very hard to ignore the coos over 'those tiny little fingers'.

"Oh isn't that precious," she was practically squeaking, "She's looking right at the mointor! I have to print this one out for you, Sam."

My head snapped toward the screen, I searched the grainy image and found myself staring into a face. Not the lumpy gray fuzz I was used to, but two little eyes, a nose and two perfect lips. My chest swelledand I reached out to grip the hand Freddie was resting on my shoulder. His fingers jumped at the sudden contact, but his eyes never left the screen. I watched his Adam's apple bob in his throat as he swallowed several times, his brow pinched together nervously. He was having a very strong reaction considering he never failed to see whatever ultrasound miracle the tech, Kristi, was pointing out.

"She?" he squeaked out.

"What? No!" Kristi clapped her hands across her mouth, her wide eyes peeked over her thumbs at us.

"You said 'she' was looking at the thing." Freddie pointed at the now blank screen.

"No, you guys, I'm so sorry. I can't tell you that, the docotr has to tell you. I'm really sorry." She flapped her hands in front of her lips as if she might wave the mistake away like a bad smell.

"It's okay, we'll take that with a grain of salt and wait for the doctor before we metion anything okay?" I pattted her knee feeling particularly fond of her at the moment, even if she was an _accidental_ rule breaker. "Also Freddie, I told you 'a mother knows'."

"Thank you," she groaned as she wiped the blue goo off my belly. "I can't believe I did that. I just really like you guys and I must have forgotten my professionalism in my excitement. You can pull your shirt down and the doctor will be in soon."

The doctor confirmed that he thought it was a girl but stressed that they were only right about gender eighty percent of the time. Freddie said that was a pretty solid margin and asked if the doctor would understand if he went ahead and bought a pink stroller anyway. The doctor asked me for the hundreth time if I wanted to talk to a social worked about my 'options' then let us be on our merry way. Nothing could hold my focus after Kristi let it slip that my little meatloaf was a girl-loaf. Images of bows and dresses were floating around in my head despite the fact that I had hated them when I was a kid and I hated them now. I did want to wear them, I just wanted to buy them all tiny and frilly. I was losing my mind.

"We should go buy something pink to celebrate," Freddie said as we pulled out of the parking lot. He turned away from the house toward downtown and I knew he was taking to the baby boutique off second street.

"We're going to be broke in a month. The baby will be the best dressed homeless person around though," I laughed. As much as I wanted to be mopey and pessimistic about having a child in high school with a guy who didn't love me, who bearly tolerated me, I was too excited about my baby girl to be sad.


End file.
